pacing

I had a good week of training, and I was hoping to carry some momentum into the Leroy TT last night. I did a warm-up lap and barely had to pedal on the outbound leg to go 20 mph since a roaring wind was directly out of the west--right down Leroy Center Road--so the last few miles of the TT was going to be like adding Tabasco sauce to the pain taco.

My plan was to try to maintain a relatively "easy" pace over the first five miles, then go all out over the last two miles.

A few seconds into my ride, I realized that this blog post was going to turn into an iBike review.

When there's a roaring wind like last night, the iBike reports bogus power data, then software corrects it after the ride. In most cases, that's not ideal, but acceptable, but when you're trying to use the power reading for pacing information, it's a fail. My legs were telling me I was going too hard, but the power meter was spitting out low readings. I backed off a little, but probably erred on the side of going too hard all the way to the turn.

I did a pretty even effort on the climb. Holding back there seemed to leave me relatively fresh on the descent to the corner. I made the turn and starting lifting the pace over the last two miles. The wind was unrelenting. I sprinted for the line over the last 200 meters, but only got up to 28 mph and felt like I had the brakes on.

I ended up 4 seconds slower than last week. It always amazes me how consistent my times can be from week to week. 4 seconds is less than 1%.

So I'll try the same approach next week and hopefully the wind won't be as tricky. Hopefully I'll make it out to Westlake next week, too.